Simplest / Cost effective way to Treat walls of a Music Room

super-systems, audio insights...

Moderator: jadis

Simplest / Cost effective way to Treat walls of a Music Room

Postby highlander » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:04 pm

Hey Philip,
Any recommendations? :?: :wink:
User avatar
highlander
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1823
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2003 12:58 pm
Location: Baguio

Postby m_shoe_maker » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:12 pm

Just sharing my 2 cents worth......

Try tube traps. :) DIY process is all over the net. :wink: Parts are cheap. :) Just wear the appropriate clothes when handling those fiberglass fibers. :twisted:
User avatar
m_shoe_maker
Idol
 
Posts: 6703
Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2003 9:48 pm
Location: House of Nivea

Postby Jon Agner » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:22 pm

There's a discussion in the DIY forum regarding this subject. :roll: just try searching for it. :)

Hope this helps. :)
User avatar
Jon Agner
Legend
Legend
 
Posts: 10567
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2003 6:48 pm
Location: Sa isang kabukiran na malapit sa tabing dagat

Postby JackD201 » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:34 pm

As the doctors say.....

"FIRST DO NO HARM"

I always tell clients to set up gear in the optimal location in the room. Remember I say optimal because in most cases real world concerns like the flow of motion within the living space must be taken to account.

Maximize placement! Before resulting in any room treatment spending at all or any other tweak in your equipment, it is the listeners duty to make sure he has tried everything to get the most from his rig. In a great many cases proper placement may be all that is necessary. If there's more to be desired...........

THEN the hard part. Listen for specific anomalies that might be occuring. A great way to learn what to listen for is to by Alton Everests book A Guide to Critical Listening that comes with 4 CDs.

When you have figured out which center frequencies are causing problems only then should you go out looking for solutions.

Beware of cookie cutter treatments. These are often untested and worse un-matched. Stick to the tried and tested products form the likes of ASC, and Auralex. I've seen many cases where chicken wire and inconsistently filled and wrapped contraption did indeed.....DO MORE HARM
User avatar
JackD201
Immortal
 
Posts: 10024
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 12:10 am
Location: Bozania

Postby ichabod » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:41 pm

This may sound a bit dumb, silly, and also defiant or iconoclastic perhaps. But I stopped treating my room save the usual furniture with some bookshelves, pillows, cushion for the bottoms, an area rug, some equipment here and there in shelves, and what do I hear "live sound" maybe not the best but nonetheless "live" as a gig that I can pretend with. The brightness factor is well taken tonally by vintage tube amps for its sheer pleasantness!
ichabod
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1824
Joined: Fri May 16, 2003 9:09 am

Postby qguy » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:04 pm

How about "Lawanit", paint the rough side with color of choice and hammer away..anyone tried this approach..

sorry sumingit ...
User avatar
qguy
Master
Master
 
Posts: 2539
Joined: Thu Mar 20, 2003 3:23 pm

Postby jadis » Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:02 pm

Hi Highlander,

Good to hear from you. :)

I have tried a lot, and I mean a LOT of materials for room acoustical treatment, be it walls of ceilings. But I think the key word here is 'cost effective'. Fiberglass (the yellow itchy type) is definitely an impact material. Very good in sucking out unwanted reflections immediately coming out of your speakers. It is more expensive than cork ( very little impact) or acoustic board (anay finish is the board of choice - not bad but there are better things) but the effectiveness of fiberglass, whether wrapped as Room Tunes or Tube Traps is very likable in my experience.

My own personal favorite way of treating my walls ( and I believe can still be called cost effective, is the 'wool/cotton spray' which I have used on my walls and ceiling since 1991. At that time, spraying 4 walls and my ceiling in a room roughly 40 sq. meters cost only P12,000. And this is the same material used at the CCP and movie theatres. Wool is imported from England but sprayed here in mixture of water and compressed air by the contractor. From here, I just added some DIY tube traps and room tunes to even more 'fine tune' my room.
Last edited by jadis on Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
jadis
Legend
Legend
 
Posts: 5688
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:14 am
Location: Tubeland - The Tube Will Set You Free

Postby highlander » Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:01 pm

Guys, thanks for the inputs. :wink:

I'm just curious - conference rooms in hotels have sort of 'treatments' in all their walls specially the dividing walls.
Are these for 'soundproofing'?
What are these made of, foam? fiberglass? :?:
User avatar
highlander
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1823
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2003 12:58 pm
Location: Baguio

Postby rtsyrtsy » Tue Feb 14, 2006 8:42 pm

Do what good 'ole Racio did...buy lots of books and vinyls and put them on sturdy shelves where you need some treatment. :D
User avatar
rtsyrtsy
Moderator
 
Posts: 3908
Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2003 5:25 am

Room treatments

Postby migs » Tue Feb 14, 2006 8:52 pm

Uratex foam panels! Not the most elegant but real cheap . .
Got rid of a lot of ringing and echoing in the room due to parallel hard surfaces.
The tapestry in front has 1/2 inch thick foam backing
Image
migs
Citizen
Citizen
 
Posts: 154
Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2003 11:20 pm
Location: Makati, Philippines

Postby jadis » Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:04 pm

highlander wrote:Guys, thanks for the inputs. :wink:

I'm just curious - conference rooms in hotels have sort of 'treatments' in all their walls specially the dividing walls.
Are these for 'soundproofing'?
What are these made of, foam? fiberglass? :?:


Could be any of the two, Highlander. Many many years ago, I visited a company that specializes in room treatment, it was located somewhere opposite the old Greenbelt mall. They had lots of samples of acoustic boards in many designs and also they had these flat panel acoustic room dividers that are used for hotels. They told me inside was a thin layer of figerglass. But other companies may use foam, it's cheaper. I had tried foam in the form (no pun intended) of Sonex, in 2ft by 2 ft panels. The good thing about Sonex is its 'wedge' design, meant to diffuse sound waves. I also tried like a 4x8 feet uratex mattress foam with egg-tray like design. There was not much of a dramatic effect that I can remember. But most likely it is still better than a flat concrete and reflective wall.
User avatar
jadis
Legend
Legend
 
Posts: 5688
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:14 am
Location: Tubeland - The Tube Will Set You Free

Postby troporobo » Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:21 am

It really depends on what you are trying to control. If you have lots of hard surfaces it may be that the sound is too bright and the reflections are messing up imaging. Then you need absorption and/or diffusion at the appropriate reflection points. On the other hand, you may need better bass control to tame peaks and eliminate nulls. Then you're looking for bass traps of some sort.

There are lots of ways to do these things. Commercial products, DIY recipes, and just plain good sense. As a first approximation, try hanging some heavy drapes or rugs and move some extra bulky furniture into the room if you can. See what happens. Experiment. (But also be sure especially to follow Jack's advice if you haven't already, and get your speaker placement optimized first)

I didn't really know for sure what my room response was like, but I suspected both issues. So a made a set of DIY fiberglass wall panels and a couple of tube traps, both from compressed fiberglass. They made a huge (yes I really mean HUGE!) difference for my room. I still don't know if the response is flat, but its a lot better. One of these days I will have to get the right test equipment and find out
User avatar
troporobo
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1309
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:46 pm
Location: Manila

Re: Room treatments

Postby marty_e » Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:56 am

migs wrote:Uratex foam panels! Not the most elegant but real cheap . .
Got rid of a lot of ringing and echoing in the room due to parallel hard surfaces.
The tapestry in front has 1/2 inch thick foam backing


Hello Migs, do those foam panels come in different colors?

thanks,

Marty
marty_e
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1125
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2003 2:04 pm

uratex

Postby migs » Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:56 pm

Yes, if i remember correctly you can choose the color, design, and thickness (they will show you different samples). You can choose to have built in adhesive backing (which I did) so its easy to attach to the wall.

Be aware though that some of our fellow wiredstate members don't really think that foam is a good absorptive material because of the closed cell design. I think it helped, though, in my room. I'm convinced that it reduced the brightness and "ringing" in the room and produced a more stable, focused center image. The effect was not as dramatic however as when I positioned the speakers farther apart (approximately 12 feet) and toed them in sufficiently so that they intersected right about where my ears normally are. THAT was my cheapest tweak . . .
migs
Citizen
Citizen
 
Posts: 154
Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2003 11:20 pm
Location: Makati, Philippines

Postby troporobo » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:51 am

Its worth keeping in mind that absorption is a function of both the density of the material and the frequency. Foam may do well for high frequencies, but nothing for midrange on downward. The lighter the foam, the higher the cut off where it stops being effective. My conclusion is that a range of materials is required for broad-band treatment.
User avatar
troporobo
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1309
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:46 pm
Location: Manila

Postby Jon Agner » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:59 am

troporobo wrote:Its worth keeping in mind that absorption is a function of both the density of the material and the frequency. Foam may do well for high frequencies, but nothing for midrange on downward. The lighter the foam, the higher the cut off where it stops being effective. My conclusion is that a range of materials is required for broad-band treatment.


I agree to that. Normally, it one needs a properly tune a room, one has to use a combination of various types absorptive materials suitable for different frequency ranges. Now, the fun part :shock: is where and how to position these combination of materials. One can do it either by ear or using a audio measuring tool and software.

To check on which type of material absorbs a certain frequency range, try google of "absoption coefficient". Materials that are absoptive in a specific frequency range have a coefficient of nearing "1" (normally, it's 0.9-.95 ;) )
User avatar
Jon Agner
Legend
Legend
 
Posts: 10567
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2003 6:48 pm
Location: Sa isang kabukiran na malapit sa tabing dagat

Postby conspicuous » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:13 am

hi philip,

what can be used for the opposite of tube traps? i have bass suck out in my 2.5m x 3.2m listening room (one of the long sides has an opening into the dining area). my room starts "rolling off" at 80hz according to a cd of frequencies i play. thanks! :)
User avatar
conspicuous
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 2258
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:33 pm
Location: San Pedro, Laguna

Postby jadis » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:28 am

conspicuous wrote:hi philip,

what can be used for the opposite of tube traps? i have bass suck out in my 2.5m x 3.2m listening room (one of the long sides has an opening into the dining area). my room starts "rolling off" at 80hz according to a cd of frequencies i play. thanks! :)



hi mael,

well, that should be a tough one. unfortunately, i have not encountered that sort of a problem and i would not know what kind of material should be used to restore those lost frequencies. maybe others can share their inputs on this subject.
User avatar
jadis
Legend
Legend
 
Posts: 5688
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:14 am
Location: Tubeland - The Tube Will Set You Free

Postby troporobo » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:31 am

Tube traps are actually effective for both peaks and nulls. At first it seems contrary to what we would believe. But as I uderstand it, the nulls and peaks are caused by the same thing, that is, standing waves caused by over-amplification in corners. If you kill this corner effect, there's no standing wave to create a null.
User avatar
troporobo
Fanatic
Fanatic
 
Posts: 1309
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:46 pm
Location: Manila

Postby Jon Agner » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:38 am

conspicuous wrote:hi philip,

what can be used for the opposite of tube traps? i have bass suck out in my 2.5m x 3.2m listening room (one of the long sides has an opening into the dining area). my room starts "rolling off" at 80hz according to a cd of frequencies i play. thanks! :)


Conspicuous,

There's a discussion regarding this somewhere in the DIY forum, one of it was a discussion started by Arnold.

Anyway, why not try experimenting on the placement of the speakers and your listening position? Maybe it will help improve the bass.

Hope this helps.
User avatar
Jon Agner
Legend
Legend
 
Posts: 10567
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2003 6:48 pm
Location: Sa isang kabukiran na malapit sa tabing dagat

Next

Return to Jadis' Corner

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests

cron